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The judge sends Shakira to trial for defrauding the Treasury of 14.5 million

2022-09-27T11:53:14.798Z


The Barcelona Court must set a date for the oral hearing after the artist rejected an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office


There is no turning back.

Shakira will sit in the dock for tax fraud.

The judge of Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) has issued an order to open an oral trial after, this summer, the negotiations between the Prosecutor's Office and the Colombian singer to reach an agreement failed.

The possibility of a pact, which Shakira has categorically ruled out, is open until the very day of the trial.

But nothing will prevent the artist from submitting to a judicial process that will add more media pressure after the break with Barça defender Gerard Piqué and in which she faces a request for more than eight years in prison.

The head of the court of first instance and instruction number 1 of Esplugues, Ana Duro, has issued an oral trial once she has received the qualification documents for both the accusations -the Prosecutor's Office, but also the State Attorney's Office and the Generalitat- and of the defense of Shakira, the only accused after one of her trusted advisers was acquitted.

The judge recalls that "there is no appeal whatsoever" against this decision, so the next step will be to set a date for the oral hearing.

The competent body to judge her will be the Barcelona Court, since the crimes exceed five years in prison.

In the car, the judge decides to maintain Shakira's condition of provisional release and avoids the imposition of precautionary measures.

The Prosecutor's Office presented its conclusions on the process before the summer.

Request a sentence of eight years and two months for defrauding 14.5 million euros to the Treasury between 2012 and 2014 by avoiding the payment of personal income tax and wealth tax.

In addition to the prison sentence, which in case of conviction can lead to his imprisonment, the public ministry requests the payment of a fine of 23.7 million.

The Prosecutor's Office points out that the crimes are especially serious because the artist used companies in tax havens to hide her income, although she appreciates a mitigating circumstance that allows her to reduce the request for the sentence: compensation for the year (she has made available to the court more of 17 million to face eventual responsibilities).

The State Attorney's Office, which acts on behalf of the Tax Agency, has also presented its indictment for three crimes (those of personal income tax), while the Generalitat has done so for the other three crimes related to the tax it collects (patrimony ).

The investigation was concluded in July 2021, but Shakira's defense filed an appeal to try to stop the trial.

She lost.

The Barcelona Court validated the indications of tax fraud and said that the dispute should be resolved in the oral trial phase.

From that moment, and with more intensity in recent months, the singer's lawyers approached the Prosecutor's Office to reach an agreement.

In exchange for accepting the facts and returning the amounts, the public prosecution offered to reduce the prison sentences so that the artist should never go to jail.

But the negotiations failed and Shakira issued a harsh statement accusing the Prosecutor's Office of being intransigent" and of resorting to "improper means to pressure."

Source: elparis

All business articles on 2022-09-27

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